Cortex Command on Steam - User reviews, Price & Information
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Choose between different factions, with their own set of expendable soldiers, mechas, and weapons. Protect your brain, mine gold, and destroy the enemy cortex in his bunker complex!
Cortex Command is a strategy, indie and action game
developed by Data Realms
and published by Data Realms and LLC.
Released on September 28th 2012 is available in English on Windows and MacOS.
It has received 5,985 reviews of which 4,293 were positive and 1,692 were negative resulting in a rating of 7.0 out of 10. 😊
The game is currently priced at 18.99€ on Steam.
The Steam community has classified Cortex Command into these genres:
System requirements
These are the minimum specifications needed to play the game. For the best experience, we recommend that you verify them.
Windows
- OS *: Microsoft® Windows® XP / Vista / 7
- Processor: 1GHz processor
- Memory: 1GB RAM
- Hard Disk Space: 150MB HDD space
- Video Card: 640x480 (VGA) resolution monitor
- Additional: Should run on any PC released within the past 5 years.
MacOS
- OSX:10.4 (OSX Tiger or Greater)
- Processor:1.6 Ghz Core 2 Duo
- RAM:1GB RAM
- Graphics:Intel GMA X3100
- Disk:300 mb
User reviews & Ratings
Explore reviews from Steam users sharing their experiences and what they love about the game.
- Solid 2D art style and graphics. - Great interactive physics. - Currently made open source. - Simple but satisfying gameplay loop of mining, looting, teching, squading, and destroying. Best part is that you don't have to feel bad about the destruction and mayhem because everything is just remote control bots.
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DON'T BUY! Tl;dr at the bottom of the review. Although I haven't played very long, this game is excellent in it's own special way. At it's core, it's mainly a physics sandbox, where you can play pre-made scenarios, a simple conquest campaign, or create your own maps and scenarios within the editor, in fun and fully destructible environments. Practically every pixel you see can be moved or destroyed (except for the background map of course.) And even if you get bored with the base game content, the community has many more scenes and presets, and even mods that add entirely new factions and tech to the game, Steam workshop is a beaut. And that's not even mentioning the split-screen co-op, I got a friend of mine to try it out and it's a blast just watching him learn the game. From using his jet-pack too fast smashing into a wall that folds his character like tin-foil, or summoning a drop pod filled with a thousand crabs that once the doors open, the entire map detonates with crab gibs everywhere. But, there's a twist- Unfortunately there's a lot of glaring problems once you start playing the game, for instance the multiplayer. The game is split-screen only, therefore you have to rely on the steam remote play to play with your friends online. But, those who own the game, will notice that you cannot open steam overlay, from what I heard this is because the game engine couldn't support it so the devs disabled it. If there's some way to make this work, please correct me as I have not found a fix as of yet. Speaking of devs, they have completely abandoned the game, although it's not in early access, the game was given to the community and is now a open source project. Which I'm pretty sure if that didn't happen the game would've died long ago. But because of this, the community started updating it and now the game is FREE to get, and it's the most updated version. So buying the steam version is actually a waste of money as it doesn't receive updates anymore. Despite it's issues on steam, the unofficial community version is what makes this game good, and shows that if the game is good and the community loves it, it will stay forever. Bethesda case in point. However the game is in limbo it would seem, like I said I have not played or seen much of this game, but it seems like the game is dying pretty badly, which is SUCH a crime because of how truly amazing this game actually is. Not only is it a finished game that you can edit inside out because of it being open source, but it's a gem that has such a unique personality with it's own game play style. Tl;dr Overall, I'm giving this game a positive rating, only because of it's community project, as the steam version is abandoned and not receiving updates anymore. While the game has been abandoned on steam, you can still play for free thanks to the Cortex Command Community Project. they single handedly picked up where the devs left off and did better. https://cortex-command-community.github.io/ And it even has LAN hosting, so you can play with your friends online. Not tied to the steam remote play! I recommend also joining the discord server so you can see if any mods updated or see if any updates or events come out. Please help bring this game back alive!
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A great game left out in the rain by the developers. You can get the whole game for free and open source since the original creators did put out the code themself. I was really debating on if giving this a positive or negative rating was better, in the end is up to you how you spend money. The workshop is great so I would understand if that was a deciding factor. Personally I have no gripes with the game, only annoying thing they put in it was adverts for Planetoid Pioneers inside it. Planetoid Pioneers being the game that killed people's respect of the developers as it was shortly abandoned too. Another reason I found it hard to review Cortex Command is trying to fit the gameplay in to a single genre. This has RTS aspects with the economy and battles, but it is also a very chill base builder. It has its economic managment phase, but also the abilily to gather and store wealth during battles for later use. If I was really forced to I would call it something it would be a 2D RTS with a strategy campaing in order to show the results of what you and the AI has made of the planet during corporate warfare. You really need to see it in order to get it. Any negative review either mentions one of two things. One Data Realms behavior of abounding games and still selling a inferior bug ridden mess (I mean why buy this instead of downloading it for free?). Two the jank of this title. What makes Cortex Command so great is the engine, the terrain and units and vehicles all can be destroyed pixel by pixel. This can ofcourse lead to problems, you could get stuck on your own dead units or a mere pixel in the way. You could be thrown half across the battle field. You could even just die from something you didn't see. Yes there are a lot of crashes. I also feel the only challange comes from the AI's ability to spam units and have them act on their own, out matches the player's ability to multitask and the rather piss poor auto commands you can give. For one player climbing is a pinch, for another is a unresolvable problem in the code. The positive aspects is that the code is out there, and I have never seen as impressive mods as I have with this title. You can play with units and vechiles at such a size it boggles the mind. Nothing will preaper you from the joy of seeing all your carnage, wreckages, old fortifcations and corpses remaning battle from battle. I can't count how many times I even destroyed my own units to add flavor to the terrain is just that cool looking (the Star Destroyer being my personal favorite sprite). Some mods just makes this a whole different game, Void Wanderers is so good it could be sold on its own. Is also very natural how you control units and build, I had no problem learning to play on my own and unlike others never experinced any real issues with climbing ladders or interacting with items. No other games really gives me the feel anything I want is possible.
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An awesome but now old and janky game. Yes, there are mods but they can only do so much. This needs a proper sequel!
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Have played this an incredible amount over the years due to how fun of a sandbox game it is. But it is clearly unfinished and quite rough. Also I think it has just broken recently as it will not start at all without crashing unless I use an entirely different version (made by the community) of the game which is a shame. I have kind of grown out of it, but I can still look back on the dozens of hours of fun I had playing with the different mods that are available. Great!
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Frequently Asked Questions
Cortex Command is currently priced at 18.99€ on Steam.
Cortex Command is currently not on sale. You can purchase it for 18.99€ on Steam.
Cortex Command received 4,293 positive votes out of a total of 5,985 achieving a rating of 7.01.
😊
Cortex Command was developed by Data Realms and published by Data Realms and LLC.
Cortex Command is playable and fully supported on Windows.
Cortex Command is playable and fully supported on MacOS.
Cortex Command is not playable on Linux.
Cortex Command offers both single-player and multi-player modes.
Cortex Command offers both Co-op and PvP modes.
Cortex Command does not currently offer any DLC.
Cortex Command is fully integrated with Steam Workshop. Visit Steam Workshop.
Cortex Command supports Remote Play Together. Discover more about Steam Remote Play.
Cortex Command is enabled for Steam Family Sharing. This means you can share the game with authorized users from your Steam Library, allowing them to play it on their own accounts. For more details on how the feature works, you can read the original Steam Family Sharing announcement or visit the Steam Family Sharing user guide and FAQ page.
You can find solutions or submit a support ticket by visiting the Steam Support page for Cortex Command.
Data sources
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Additionally, we incorporate data from the SteamSpy API, which offers insights into game sales and player statistics. This helps us present a comprehensive view of each game's popularity and performance within the gaming community.
Last Updates| Steam data | 09 June 2025 00:00 |
|---|---|
| SteamSpy data | 10 June 2025 17:15 |
| Steam price | 14 June 2025 20:43 |
| Steam reviews | 13 June 2025 06:02 |
If you'd like to dive deeper into the details about Cortex Command, we invite you to check out a few dedicated websites that offer extensive information and insights. These platforms provide valuable data, analysis, and user-generated reports to enhance your understanding of the game and its performance.
- SteamDB - A comprehensive database of everything on Steam about Cortex Command
- SteamCharts - Analysis of Cortex Command concurrent players on Steam
- ProtonDB - Crowdsourced reports on Linux and Steam Deck Cortex Command compatibility
Game modes
Features
Online players
4
Developer
Data Realms
Publisher
Data Realms, LLC
Release
28 Sep 2012
Platforms
Remote Play